


Set My Heart Aflame (This is Not a Game)

by goldenheadfreckledheart



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, detective!clarke, firefighter!Bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:16:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7361179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenheadfreckledheart/pseuds/goldenheadfreckledheart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whoever this arsonist is, Clarke has to wonder if they’ve got something out for her in particular.</p><p>“Griffin!”</p><p>The loud, deep voice rings out as she turns away from a witness and back toward the house—kitchen now no longer on fire—to see her least favorite firefighter, cocky grin settled on his sweaty, unfairly handsome face. “Fancy seeing you here.”</p><p>She loathes him.</p><p>A Bellarke Firefighter/Detective, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Set My Heart Aflame (This is Not a Game)

**Author's Note:**

> A ridiculously late giveaway fic for Ciara, aka [nadiahilker](http://www.nadiahilker.tumblr.com) on tumblr.
> 
> Based on this [post](http://goldenheadfreckledheart.tumblr.com/post/141488290432/prosciuttoe-isabellelightword-so-i-need-an).
> 
> Edit by the fantastic Alessa/[underbellamy](http://underbellamy.tumblr.com) can be found [here](http://goldenheadfreckledheart.tumblr.com/post/143286823992/underbellamy-bellarke-auff-set-my-heart).
> 
> It should be noted that I have no idea how firefighting or detective-ing works. Apologies in advance. Also, fair warning, this is lacking in actual plot. (But I feel like if you know me even a little, that’s not what you’re here for anyways.) Anyways, this took me way longer than it should have, but I hope you all enjoy it. <3

Whoever this arsonist is, Clarke has to wonder if they’ve got something out for her in particular.

“Griffin!”

The loud, deep voice rings out as she turns away from a witness and back toward the house—kitchen now no longer on fire—to see her least favorite firefighter, cocky grin settled on his sweaty, unfairly handsome face. “Fancy seeing you here.”

She loathes him.

Sighing, she flips a page in her tattered notebook.

“Somehow not really,” she grumbles. Which just makes him grin more broadly. With his stupid white teeth. “Notice anything unusual in there?” she asks, pen poised. Because she is absolutely, completely _professional_.

“You mean besides the fire?” he smirks, crooked grin in full force. He shifts his helmet to one arm to push a hand through his hair, setting it even more askew, looking for all the world as if he walks out of burning houses every day.

Which, okay, he _does_ , to be fair. But still. At her sigh, his smile resurges again, but he does at least give her an actual answer this time.

“Nothing much to report, Princess.”

She refuses to bristle at the nickname. “Great, then get out of my hair. I have work to do.”

“But watching you work is so _entertaining._ I might learn something from her supreme highness of Detecting.”

“Fuck off, Blake.” The record will show that she tried to be civil. Kind of.

She wishes she could say that they haven’t always been this way, but from the day she got the job a year ago, if there was a fire, there was Bellamy. And where Bellamy was, the snarky, biting remarks flowed in abundance.

To be fair, she’s the one who started it, when she’d offhandedly commented on the severity of the burn damage at the first crime scene they’d worked together, aghast that she’d have so little evidence to work with. New to the force, and with the ever-present knowledge that she was the great _Mayor Griffin’s_ daughter, she was eager to prove that she’d worked her way here of her own accord, not on her mother’s coattails. And there she was, evidence turning to ashes in front of her eyes.

She hadn’t even noticed him standing next to her when she says, aloud, that she only wishes the fire department had been there quicker. So she can _almost_ understand his anger—she’s the first to know what it’s like to have the very core of your work criticized—but that doesn’t excuse him from responding as _strongly_ as he does.

“We might as well go on record saying that we _started_ the damn fire then, I guess?” he says, turning on her. “Anything to keep a black mark off your precious record.”

She’s almost speechless for a second—only half surprised by the immediate animosity from someone she’s never met. She knew, in the back of her head, that she’d get this from someone _eventually,_ but actually experiencing it is a whole different thing.

She feels the blood rush to her face. “Hey, relax alright? This isn’t personal, I just wanted to _catch_ the guy.”

He scoffs, still scowling as he crosses his arms. “Oh, I’m sure you did,” he sneers. “But you know, I hear they hand out medals for _almost_ catching the bad guy, too, so don’t worry too much about it.”

“What exactly do you want from me?” she seethes, abandoning any pretense of professionalism for a second, barely restraining herself from jabbing a finger to his chest—which is broad in a way that really annoys her, just on principle. “To do a sub-par job? Because it seems like you’ve already got _that_ part covered.”

It’s, admittedly, not her finest moment.

From then on, he always has something to say about her—uptight, all-knowing, pretentious—and she has plenty ammunition of her own—cocky, presumptuous, _careless_. They fling variations of the same tune back and forth so many times that it’s almost second nature. He knows that her mother’s position is a sore-spot, and she’s come to realize that his pride in his job is the one thing he values over all else, and they’re both relentless in picking at the other’s weakness.

Now, with the upswing in arson reports this month, Clarke’s seeing a lot more of him than she’d prefer. But after working countless, agonizing crime scenes with him since she started, at least now she can readily admit—maybe not out loud, or to his face, but still—that if there’s one thing Bellamy Blake does well, it’s his job. And she has a sneaking suspicion that he’d say the same about her.

You know, if held at gunpoint.

So here they are, a year later, with some level of basic trust, undermined by petty animosity and no small number of biting remarks.

“Just… let me know if any of the other guys saw anything strange, alright?” she sighs, looking back toward the charred kitchen, “We need all the perspective we can get to catch this guy.”

He gives her a wordless mock-salute as he walks away, and she thinks he’s actually being half-pleasant for once until he turns back, catches her watching, and drops into a low bow. She glares, and his laughter carries back to her as she turns to get back to work.

 

* * *

 

The next week, it’s an ice cream shop, she has no further leads, and everything is _frustrating_.

“Maybe it’s a 10-year-old who’s angry they wouldn’t let them buy their mint chocolate chip,” Bellamy says, appearing at her shoulder.

She almost smiles. “An angry 10-year-old who leaves no evidence of their accelerant and manages to keep off all the security footage?”

His laugh is humorless. “Clearly you didn’t know my sister at 10 years old.”

“I didn’t know you had a sister at all, actually,” she says. Which is true. This might be the most personal information she’s ever had about Bellamy Blake.

He just hums shortly, probably realizing the same thing at about the same time. He doesn’t meet her eyes and she lets the subject drop.

“So what next then?” he asks after an awkward moment, voice overly bright, with a hint of irony. “Chasing the phantom arsonist? Gonna get the ghostbusters in here? Shouldn’t be a problem for us, I’m sure you have those kinds of connections.”

_Right back to normal. Familiar territory._

She rolls her eyes. “Why are you still here? Get out of my crime scene, Blake.”

“Oh,” he gives her a look of mock-confusion, placing a hand to his chest, “Was there not just a fire? Did I not just--,” he looks around in wonder, “put it out and save _your_ crime scene? So careless of me. I better go get you some donuts, at least make myself _useful_.”

She refuses to acknowledge the theatrics. “It’s really the least you could do.”

“My genius makes you self-conscious, I get it,” he says, lofty. “I’ll just get out of your hair then.” He punctuates the sarcastic comment with a tug of one of her curls before she has time to dodge.

She makes a face. “Pest.”

“Princess.”

 

* * *

 

After that, it’s a public school in the most disadvantaged part of town, and she’s moved past frustration to _anger_.

“I can’t believe they’d stoop this _low_ ,” she seethes to Lincoln. It’s one thing to hit the wealthy parts of town, but this is… she shakes her head.

Lincoln just nods in silent, sullen agreement.

The call came in at midnight. It’s 2 a.m. now and the fire department is just finishing up on the school. She hasn’t seen Bellamy since his helmet disappeared into the flames two hours ago, but now, finally, seeing his freckled, soot covered face emerge from the blackened building, she lets out a breath without quite realizing that she was holding it, before turning back to Lincoln.

Predictably, she sees Bellamy make his way over once his job is finished and sends Lincoln off to check in with the rest of the team and divvy them up to comb the crime scene just as he steps up beside them.

She blames the early hour for whatever part of her brain decides to say, “I assume you’ve prepared new insults for today,” with a sigh as she sinks down to sit on the parking lot curb.

He sits down beside her, slowly, giving her a strange look.

“Sorry Spock. Too early. Or… late? Fuck, I don’t know. Anyway, you’re on insult duty today.” She realizes, belatedly, that he looks as tired as she feels, slumping backward to lean on his elbows. “I decided.”

She only vaguely registers that he caught the reference.

“This _sucks_ ,” she grinds out. “Like, an empty house in a nice part of town? Dick move, but fine, I guess. A fancy ice-cream place? Whatever.” She waves a hand tiredly.

He snorts.

“What?”

“Pretty sure you’re not supposed to say that someone setting a house on fire is ‘ _fine.’_ ”

She snorts back. “What, are you gonna file a complaint against me?”

“Nnng, too tired.” He yawns hugely. “I’ll probably forget by tomorrow. You got lucky.”

She’s smiling softly up at the sky, until she realizes that she’s smiling _because of Bellamy_. Which is—she’s not sure how to deal with that.

She clears her throat. “Who sets fire to a school for disadvantaged kids though? They won’t be able to get back in there for days.”

He hums. “ _Weeks_ maybe.”

At his response, she sits up straighter, turns to look at him head on.

He’s still leaning back, but he shifts to meet her eyes. “What?”

“You usually have something quippy to add when I’m complaining about things.”

He blinks a little, like he hadn’t realized he’d agreed with her, and is as surprised by their accordance as she is.

After a moment, he just shrugs. “Nah. It’s fucked up.”

“Huh.”

As she ponders if she should take this as a sign of the oncoming apocalypse, she hears a faint series of clanks from the alleyway beside the school, jagged and sharp against the quiet night.

She bolts upright, halfway to her feet before a coherent thought can cross her mind. _The arsonist. Her culprit. Finally._

Then she’s sprinting toward the school and around the corner, urging her tired limbs to move faster. Bellamy’s voice rings from somewhere behind her, but her pulse is pounding too hard in her ears for her to hear anything else, her attention solely focused on closing this case. _Finally._

She swings around the corner just in time to see a lanky teenager, greasy hair hanging past his ears, drop a spent can of spray paint to the concrete. It falls from his fingers to clatter loudly on the ground.

In the back of her mind, she knows that it doesn’t make sense, that their elusive arsonist would never stick around to tag his work, but logic doesn’t have place in her sleep deprived, manic state, adrenaline pushing her forward.

“Police! Stop where you are!”

She sees his eyes go wide, his body bracing to flee, but she’s got a head start, and her momentum gives her enough time to get past him, blocking his escape down the other end of the alley.

Left only with the way back toward the parking lot where her squad is set up, he lunges for her, quicker than she’s ready for. She’s has more combat training than he does, though, and breaks from his grip after a short struggle. But before she can reach for her gun he’s lunging for her again.

He’s not taller than her, or larger, but he’s aggressive in a wild, unrelenting way and it takes her long moments to get the upper hand, finally leveraging her weight against him to trap him down against the cracked cement.

He’s still struggling too much for her to pull out her handcuffs when she hears Lincoln’s voice and footsteps moving toward her. He appears at her side, easily cuffing the delinquent, his added weight effectively ending the fight.

“Clarke. I’m taking him in.”

 _Not him,_ she thinks, mind running wild and fast. _Wrong person. Wrong wrong wrong._

“Hey,” Lincoln says, “are you alright?”

She only realizes how heavily she’s breathing when he has to ask again.

“Clarke. I need you to tell me that you’re okay.”

She turns to meet his steady eyes, forcing a miniscule nod. Slowly, she pushes herself up and off of the suspect, only to sink back down against the alley wall, lungs still protesting from the struggle as Lincoln pulls the teenager to his feet, hefting him off toward the parking lot. Before he’s gone, she hears him say something, though presumably not to her.

“Hey! Stay with her. Make sure she’s alright.”

Seconds later, Bellamy appears beside her, breathing heavy, eyes wild. In the mess of her thoughts, she manages a single, grim, coherent one: _of course he’d be here for this_.

His hand falls heavily on her knee as he crouches next to her. “Clarke? Fuck, all you alright? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” she says, words coming out in huffs of breath. “I’m fine,” she says again, louder.

“Jesus,” he breathes, collapsing back against the wall beside her.

The chorus of _wrong, wrong, wrong_ still rings through her head.

He’s silent for a long moment, and then, “What the fuck were you thinking?”

Her breathing is more even now, but standing up still seems out of reach. Forming a sentence seems doable though.

She grits her teeth. “I was thinking I was doing my _job._ ”

After a beat, he laughs harshly. “Then how come I’m the one who had to get Lincoln to come help you? Isn’t having back-up part of your _job_?”

“Fuck.”

It hits her then, how thoroughly she could have screwed this up. How _badly_ this could have gone for her. Never mind that it had been the wrong person, she’d thrown all semblance of protocol out the window.

“Fuck,” she says again, stomach dropping. “You’re right.” Her head falls into her hands. “And wasn’t even our fucking guy.”

When he laughs this time, it’s like he actually finds something funny.

She musters the energy to lift her head and glare. “ _What?_ ”

His shoulders are still shaking as he holds up two fingers, and it takes him a second to get over his mirth and speak.

When he does, he’s still smiling. “Two things. One, you just told me I was right. It’s a momentous occasion.” If it’s possible for her to glare harder, she does. “Two, even when you screw up, you _don’t_ screw up.”

That catches her off guard. “What are you talking about?”

“You didn’t catch our guy, but you put away a teenager for defacing public property. You can’t even _fail_ properly, Griffin.”

She must be delirious, between the early hour and the events of the morning, because suddenly she’s laughing too.

After a surprised look, Bellamy’s laughter grows softer and he shakes his head at her, leaning back against the wall again.

Eventually they both lapse into silence, though her breath still comes out a little jagged. She presses her hands down hard against the cement to stop their shaking.

“Why do you try so hard?” he asks after a long moment of silence, head still resting against the wall. “Your mom can always clean up after you if you mess up.”

It’s not unkind, the way he says it. Not like he’s attacking her, but like he’s genuinely curious.

She considers not telling him, leaving him with a snarky non-answer, but she thinks she might feel better if she says it out loud, so she takes a breath.

“This…” she struggles for the right words, to make him understand. “This position is me doing my own thing. Being my own person without using,” she makes weak air quotes, “the ‘Griffin safety net’. Without her watching my back and cleaning up my messes. This is what I want to _do_ , my choice of career _._ So it matters.”

She lifts her eyes to look at him, voice a little stronger. “It matters that the _second_ I screw up, the immediate response will be ‘Oh yeah, that’s Griffin’s daughter. She’s only here because of her mother. No wonder she’s a shit detective.’”

She looks back down, fascinated by the dark dust left on her hands from the cement. “And then any credibility or respect that I’ve got is gone. Anything that I’ve created for myself here…forget about it. Because everyone else will have.”

Bellamy’s silent for a long moment, and she’s honestly not sure if she’s even going to get a response.

“I guess I never thought about it like that,” he says finally.

She shrugs. “I don’t expect people to.” She doesn’t, really. Because she knows it’s nice to dislike someone for their parents sometimes, to have someone to complain about, like the girl who only seems to have a job because her mother’s important. “As long as I can get them to see that I’m serious, and a want to do a good job, and _help_ people… that’s all that matters to me.”

He’s silent for longer this time, and she’s not sure if she’s expecting a scathing remark or a sympathetic one, though she can’t say she’d rather have one over the other.

In the end, she gets neither as the silence stretches on, though she does think she sees him nod out of the corner of her eye.

After a while, he stands up, pushing off from the wall, and offers her a hand. “C’mon. You should get back.”

She takes it with a nod of thanks, and he follows her down the alley.

 

* * *

 

Clarke comes down with a nasty cold the next week, and though she says she’s fine when she hears that their arsonist has hit again, Lincoln remarks over the phone that he can literally _hear_ her exhaustion—which, yeah, probably—and insists that she stay home and let the rest of the squad handle this one.

They find nothing, as always, though she still makes Lincoln send over the pictures for her to overanalyze. Over-warm in the stuffiness of her apartment, she heaves open her window and climbs out onto the fire escape to shuffle through the pictures as she works her way through three boxes of kleenex.

There’s nothing there, of course, leaving her with nothing to obsess over but the things she’d said in the alley last week.

 

* * *

 

Luckily, their perpetrator is generous enough to start another fire the following week, at the Jaha Corporation downtown.

“Missed you at the crime scene last week,” Bellamy says, snarky as always, as he falls in step beside her when she’s heading in from the parking garage. His hair is particularly messy today, and it annoys her for some reason.

“I was sick.”

He’s silent for a second, and when she looks over, he’s staring at her expectantly.

She raises an eyebrow, “What?”

He shakes his head a little. “Oh, sorry, I legitimately thought you were going to follow that up with ‘of your shit.’ My bad.”

He says it with the same tone that he always does, no evidence that he’s taking pity on her after her… outburst a couple weeks prior. And it’s somehow comforting that this has stayed the same, after she gave up something so close to herself. She’d thought of it as a loss at the time. Like telling him about her mother was conceding the battle. Because now he knows something personal about her, and she’s got nothing on him.

But he’s talking to her with his usual snark, not dancing around her feelings or even holding it over her. She’s not sure which of those she’d been expecting, but she’d been expecting _one_ of them. Not this. Not their usual dynamic.

She smiles before she can help it. “Yeah, well, the day’s still young.”

His bark of laughter is just as sarcastic as usual, but he meets her eyes when he does it, and it’s less _at her_ and more _with her_ and… it’s kind of a lot to handle—Bellamy Blake acting _friendly._

The crime scene turns out to be enough to take her mind off the anomaly. There are about a thousand pieces of evidence to process in the office building, which sounds like it should be a good thing, but they honestly have no idea what’s actually relevant and what’s not, so it’s mostly monotonous and discouraging.

Bellamy’s actually nowhere to be seen around the building after she gets to work, which is surprising considering his tendency to brood around the outskirts and make unhelpful comments. She wouldn’t say she _misses_ him, but it is fairly strange, not having him there. _Better_ , she tells herself, _easier to get things done without him around._ Which really isn’t a lie, but also doesn’t feel true for the reasons she wishes it were.

She’s finally takes a break after helping Monty with what they think is a footprint, but, after a good amount of scrutiny just turns out to be a coincidental pattern of soot.

She flops down on a bench outside the massive office building, heaving a heavy sigh, peeling off her jacket.

She’s hardly there for five minutes when a paper bag is dropped unceremoniously on her lap.

“What the f--,” she starts, looking up to see that it’s Bellamy, now taking a seat beside her, as her exclamation fades into rolling eyes. She can’t help but notice that he’s changed out of his uniform, and that a black t-shirt and jeans is really… not a bad look on him.

“What is this?” she asks, refocusing her eyes on the mysterious bag in her lap.

“Donuts,” he supplies promptly, grin shit-eating.

She rolls her eyes harder this time. “Are you serious?”

“You did say it was the least I could do.”

She’s moves to set the donuts down between them, dismissing the joke, but he stops her with a hand against hers, pushing the bag back toward her. When she looks at him, he doesn’t meet her eyes, and his words are more gruff than usual, if that’s possible.

“Take the damn donuts. You’ve been here for hours and I know you haven’t eaten anything…” He pauses, like he’s debating his next words. “And we can all tell you’re still sick.”

He’s not wrong, and she’s unfairly endeared, because his voice is still gruff and grudging, a there’s hint of color at his cheeks. “Can’t expect you to catch our arsonist if you can’t even take care of yourself.”

It’s hard not to blush, because no matter how much he tries to play it off, it’s incredibly thoughtful—and somehow makes her heart beat a little faster—so she ducks her head and accepts the stupid donuts.

“Not like you’re any better,” she says after a second, because she’s seen him work himself to the bone, covered in soot and sweat, more times than she can count.

He doesn’t say anything, just looks at her for a long moment with an expression that says _just eat the damn donuts._

Finally, she gives in with an exaggerated sigh—“ _Fine._ ”—pulling out a donut smothered in powdered sugar. She _is_ pretty hungry, and she’ll admit that the donut is amazing, nearly moaning as the sugar melts on her tongue.

“I see the stereotype is true, then,” Bellamy says, trademark grin in full force.

“Shut up,” she mumbles around her donut. He grins wider.

The just sit there for a while, Clarke enjoying the donuts while Bellamy fiddles with his phone. It’s not necessarily an uncomfortable silence, but it still feels like something that needs to be filled.

She’s just opening her mouth to talk when he starts speaking.

“When I was a kid, our house burned down.”

Surprised by the sudden topic, Clarke turns toward him, but he’s not looking at her, opting instead to stare up at the building in front of them, mind clearly somewhere else.

“It really sucked, because we were poor already, what with my mom’s drug problem.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, lost in sadness or memory, she can’t quite tell. When it seems like he might not speak again, she prompts him.

“What did you do?” she asks, just as quiet, and slow, because this is definitely uncharted territory for them.

“We moved into this horrible, tiny apartment and I got another job.” He runs a hand down his face. “Sometimes I wished, as horrible as it sounds, that our mom would die, because then Octavia—my sister—wouldn’t have had to be around her.” His words look like they’re physically exhausting, requiring effort to force them out, and she wonders why he doesn’t stop. “But now I know that it would have been a bitch to get custody when I was still a minor, so I guess it was better, in a way.”

He’s quiet for a long moment, and she doesn’t know what to say, so she stays quiet too, figures that he’ll talk if he wants to talk.

“She died when I was 21 and O was 17.”

She lacks the right words for something so awful. “Bellamy…I’m sorry.”

He shrugs, but she can see the tension in his shoulders. “She was a shitty parent.”

“A shitty parent is still a parent,” she says. “It must have been hard for you both.”

He looks like he’s going to disagree for a second, but then his shoulders slump. “Yeah. It was.”

On impulse, she leans into his shoulder a little, unsure if it’s the right move until he leans back after a second.

“Your house… that’s why you became a firefighter?”

He hums in affirmation, shoulder still warm against hers.

“Why did you tell me all this?” she asks after a while. She finds that she _likes_ knowing, which is strange in itself, but doesn’t explain why he decided to open up.

He shrugs, carefully nonchalant. “You spilled your demons, I’m spilling mine. We’re even.”

His words hit her like a ton of bricks, forcing her to realize how much they _understand_ each other, despite all their animosity—though even that’s fading now. He doesn’t say it exactly, but she can see he knows that this was exactly what she’d been worried about—being somehow at his mercy because of a traumatic night and an impulsive spilling of words.

She smiles a little, the embarrassment of the night flooding back, but also feeling warm for reasons she can’t quite explain. “So what you’re saying is that you definitely had it worse than me.”

He laughs shaking his head. “It’s not a competition. I’m just saying I know what it feels like to have the odds stacked against you.”

“Okay, but not living up to my mother’s crazy legacy isn’t quite the same as having to raise a child and find a career while still managing to _eat_.”

“No, it’s not. And I’m not saying I wouldn’t trade my life for yours in a heartbeat, but I haven’t been through what you have, and you haven’t been through what I have.” He shrugs again. “Competing over who had a shittier life is pointless.”

He’s so serious, and she appreciates and really, seriously, _respects_ that, because it’s so far from where they began, and from what she ever expected from him, which is probably pretty horrible of her.

But she doesn’t really know how to say all that. What she _does_ know is how to lighten the mood between them, so she settles for that instead.

“Okay, but my life is still less shitty, sorry.”

Bellamy snaps to look at her, almost disbelieving, but he softens when he sees her teasing smile.

He huffs a laugh. “Alright, well then hand over one of those donuts, because I definitely deserve them over your privileged ass.”

She laughs, handing over the bag. “Yeah, you probably do.”

 

* * *

 

That Sunday, it pours down rain like it hasn’t in ages and Clarke holes up in her apartment, swathed in her father’s old sweater and a pair of leggings.

She’s always loved the rain and the way it makes the world feel small and safe, makes the air feel charged with something like magic. She makes a pot of coffee and idly muses that this means there won’t be any fires today. Unless someone tries _really_ hard.

Deciding that the rain is better enjoyed from the fire escape where she can feel the cold air and hear the drops plinking against the overhang, she pulls on a pair of fuzzy socks and heads out with a blanket and her sketchpad.

Her building faces out into a somewhat busy street, mostly empty now due to the downpour, and she takes to sketching the window boxes of the apartment building across the way.

An hour later, realizing she’s let her coffee turn cold, she steps back inside to warm it up, humming under her breath. When she climbs back outside, she rests her arms against the cold railing, leaning out just far enough for a few fat raindrops to land on her nose. She wipes them away and lets her eyes drop to the street, two floors below, watching the few brave pedestrians huddled under umbrellas that bob along the sidewalk. Her eyes skim over them and catch on a hunched figure, sheltered only by a soaked newspaper in the downpour.

She has to look away and then back before she realizes that the figure is a familiar one. And then she thinks she’s just making herself see things—a side effect of the silly crush she’s probably going to have to admit to soon. But, after a moment, the light from a streetlamp catches on his face, freckled, with brows drawn together.

_Bellamy?_

She thought she’d heard him mention that he lived just outside of town, not in the thick of it, like her, which means he must be out on some errand, and not just on his way home.

Out on an errand. In the rain. Without a stupid umbrella.

She yells down to him before she really stops to consider, and then yells again, louder, when he doesn’t hear her the first time. His hair is wet and pressed close to his head when he finally looks up, with what she assumes is a confused expression on his face. She thinks that he eventually recognizes her, judging by the change in the set of his shoulders, but then she might actually be delusional.

Either way, after shouting into the wind for him to come to the door—accompanied by pointing and gesturing, and a lot of confused head tilts on his part—his figure finally turns toward her building and she climbs back inside, pulling on a pair of worn boots and snatching her keys before rushing out the door.

She turns around and goes back a moment later, on second thought, for a towel.

When she gets down to the lobby, Bellamy’s waiting outside the door, looking very much like a lost, wet, puppy and she has to try ridiculously hard not to laugh.

(She’s definitely smiling when she opens the door, though.)

“Need something, Princess?” he says before she gets a word out. The nickname doesn’t hold the same sting when she can see through his façade of gruffness; like he’s pretending he doesn’t know she’s going to invite him inside. Like he’s not currently shivering and drenched head to toe. It’s only very slightly cute.

“No, but you do,” she says with a small grin, tilting her head, indicating that he come inside.

For all the careful nonchalance of his greeting, he comes inside with little insistence on her part. She stifles another laugh and hands him the towel.

He takes it with a sheepish grin, tossing it immediately over his head to dry his hair.

“Hi, Bellamy.”

The sheepish grin he gives her this time tells her that knows how stupid he’s being. “Hi, Clarke.”

He finishes with his hair, and it falls, damp and messy, across his forehead as he drapes the towel across his neck. It’s definitely not working for her. At all.

“What are you doing in town without an umbrella?” she manages.

He scowls comically then, looking back toward the door where rain still plummets down outside, like it actually decided to show up just spite him.

“I was _trying_ to pick up flowers for my sister. She’s coming into town tomorrow.”

“And what, you forgot to check the weather?”

“I took the metro in,” he says, defensive, “and I figured it would clear up pretty soon.”

Her grin keeps getting wider. “And what about the flowers, Bellamy? Were you just going to let them _drown_?”

“Shut up,” he quips, smiling a little, and she has to stop and marvel at the weirdness of Bellamy Blake being in her apartment lobby for a second.

“You want to come up?” she asks. “Dry off, wait for the rain to pass?”

He shuffles his feet, looking down a little. “No, that’s I’ll right. I’ll just—”

“Go back out into the rain? Get soaked again?” she prompts. “Seriously, I don’t mind.”

He looks like he’s debating with himself for a second—which is dumb, because she’s not actually going to let him go back outside—before finally nodding.

“Okay. Sure.” He looks down at the towel around his neck. “Did I say thanks already?”

“Not yet, no.”

“God, sorry,” he says, following her to the elevator. And then finally, “Thanks, Clarke.”

It’s in all ways different from their earlier interactions, and not at all unpleasant.

“You’re welcome.”

“How did you even see me, anyways?” he asks, a beat later.

“Easy, I was out on the fire escape and I just looked for the idiot who didn’t know how to prepare for the rain.”

His scowl is halfhearted, at best, as they step into the elevator.

After a second, a giggle escapes her lips, when the reality of the situation strikes her.

“What else can you possibly be making fun of me for?”

“Sorry, it’s just—prepared for fire, but not so much for the rain. It makes sense, really. I get it.”

“Fuck off,” he says, but he’s grinning—wide and bright—and she feels pretty proud about it.

They step out of the elevator at her floor, and she fumbles with her keys to unlock her door, only mildly embarrassed about having him inside her apartment. It’s small, to be sure, one bedroom and an open kitchen/living room area, but she likes it. It’s hers, completely, no stitch of her mother to be found.

“So, uh, I have a dryer?” she says as he steps inside, taking in the space. “And some sweats that might almost fit you.”

She flits off to the closet before he can respond, rummaging through the clothes there that she hardly ever wears, finding her father’s old sweats and a huge police department t-shirt because she knows it’ll make him smile. Or roll his eyes. One of the two.

It’s absolutely not something she should care about.

He must get some gist of how awkward she feels when she returns with the clothes, because he takes them with another “thanks,” and then: “Be honest, how much do you love that you’re saving me right now?”

She fully knows that she could take this opening to make fun of him, lord it over him like he expects her to, but something about the air, the rain, the way it feels like this day exists outside of the real world has her responding honestly.

“Someone’s gotta do it. You can’t be the goddamn hero all the time.”

And then, because she’s definitely blushing, she points back down the hallway. “Bathroom’s over there, on the right, and laundry is the next room down.”

She sees him smile when goes though, so it was probably worth it. And she’s probably screwed.

When he comes out of the bathroom, he’s looking down at the shirt she’s given him, half amusement, half annoyance.

“I hate you.”

She cackles, stepping toward the kitchen. “You want coffee?”

If he’s surprised by her casual response, he doesn’t show it. “Yeah, sure.”

She pours a cup for him, and another for herself—because she knows what she’s about—before heading back into the living room. Bellamy takes the mug from her, and she nods him toward the couch.

“It’s a nice place,” he says after a moment, as the silence grows slightly awkward.

“I like it, yeah. Small, but I’m in the city and I don’t pay too much.” She doesn’t think she needs to add the part about not wanting to rely on her mother.

“So your sister?” she asks, in lieu of another bout of silence. “Where’s she coming in from?”

He lights up at the mention, and it’s adorable, but also so _far_ from where they’ve been, from when he’d only mentioned his sister on accident, and from when she never would have dared ask about her.

“Yeah, Octavia,” he says. “She’s coming in from California. She teaches at an elementary school there and they get off pretty early for winter break.”

Clarke can’t help a grin as she tucks her feet up under her on the couch. “So, the whole noble, non-self-serving career thing—that’s genetic?”

“What?”

“You know,” she says, grin forming. “Firefighter. Schoolteacher. It doesn’t get much more storybook perfect than that. Unless I should assume it’s a ruse to hide your dark past.”

“It’s all part of the disguise.”

Clarke hums. “Yeah, I thought so.”

“But yeah, they let out early for winter break, so she’s coming in tomorrow. I was gonna have flowers waiting for her at my place because I’m on duty ‘til six and I can’t pick her up.”

It’s like he doesn’t realize how adorable he is—and she would make fun of him for it, except he really does look put off that he’s too busy to pick up his sister.

“I could pick her up. Monday’s my day off.” She’s not sure why she suggests it, except that she really is free tomorrow, and, you know—his face.

“No way,” he says, but she can’t even think about being offended before he goes on. “I’m not gonna commandeer your free day like that.”

“Okay well I offered, so technically _I’m_ commandeering my free day like that.”

He grins a little, but still shakes his head. “Seriously Clarke, it’s not a big deal, she can find her way on her own.”

“You feel bad leaving your sister to navigate the city on her own.” It’s not a question. They both know the answer.

His response is still reluctant. “Yeah.”

“And I’m free. Ergo, you have a friend who can pick up your sister.”

He’s almost smiling again, which she’s definitely proud about. “You sure?”

“Nope, just offered so I could take it back right now and see how you react,” she says, bumping her shoulder into his, knowing full well that she’s acting like a teenager with a crush, resorting to teasing to avoid actual feelings. She’s super mature.

But he bumps back, and then stays close, so.

“Wanna watch something until the rain lets up?”

 

* * *

 

Bellamy’s sister is surprisingly easy to find. He texts Clarke a picture of her after he leaves that night—along with another round of unnecessary ‘thank you’s—and she has no trouble spotting the energetic, dark haired woman coming down the escalator at the airport.

Clarke must be fairly recognizable too, because Octavia makes a beeline for her, wide grin on her face that strikingly resembles her brother’s. Because apparently being unfairly attractive is a genetic thing.

“Clarke, right?” she asks.

“Yeah. You must be Octavia?”

She nods. “The prodigal sister.” She pauses, gives an indiscernible look. “Is Bellamy still an idiot?”

“I’m not sure that’s something you should count on changing anytime soon.”

Octavia doesn’t laugh, but she does grin. “Yeah, I see why he likes you.”

“ _Like_ might be a strong word.”

They make their way over to baggage claim, and Octavia looks like she wants to fight her on this—the _like_ comment, not the baggage claim—but then she seems to let it slide.

“Whatever you say,” she says instead. And having a Blake _not_ fight with her might be weirder than the alternative.

They find her bags easily and head back out the parking lot, Clarke asking about her school all the while.

By the time they get the car started, Clarke can already say she really likes Octavia. She’s young, obviously smart, and dedicated to her students. And Clarke can see exactly why Bellamy is proud of her.

She drives them back to his place, per his insistence that he’s not going to intrude on her any more than he already has. He did seem vaguely worried that she’s going to find something _wrong_ with it. Which is ridiculous. He’s seen her place already.

Octavia’s never been here either, since he’s apparently moved apartments since the last time she visited, so they get turned around a couple times on the way there, but they eventually find the building and the promised guest parking.

They get in the front door with the access code he’d given them and, when they get up to the third floor, Clarke finds the key under the mat, where he said it’d be. When she picks it up, she notices the small piece of paper attached to it, and pauses to read.

_Proof that Clarke Griffin is Bellamy Blake’s friend._

It’s written in Bellamy’s messy scrawl and she has to work to keep a smile from filling her entire face. She slips the paper in her pocket, but not, she wagers, before Octavia gets a look at it judging from the smirk on her face.

Bellamy’s place is a bit smaller than hers, Clarke notes as they head inside, but it’s tidy and very _him_. Masculine, but not overbearingly so. It’s warm.

She and Octavia settle into his couch with coffee, because it’s clearly the only way Clarke knows how to socialize, and she fills Octavia in on the broad details of the case they’ve been working.

After that topic exhausts itself… the conversation isn’t exactly awkward, but after few minutes, Octavia spots Bellamy’s Wii, and that definitely makes it easier.

Which is how they end up a few games deep in Mario Kart by the time Bellamy shows up.

“And here I was worried about you two not making yourselves at home. Clearly a lapse in judgement.”

“Bell!” Octavia exclaims as Clarke turns toward his voice. He’s been swept up in his sister’s arms by the time his eyes meet hers, soft smile on his face.

“You two pass the time okay?”

“Yeah,” Clarke says. “Mostly spilling the secrets of our case.”

“Don’t worry, I didn’t get any of the delicate details,” Octavia says, pulling away from her brother, “Just the general gist, and that she’s so much more badass than you.”

He meets Clarke’s eyes. “Yeah. She kind of is.”

“I’m gonna need that in writing.”

He rolls his eyes, but otherwise doesn’t look the least bit annoyed by her teasing, and she’s thinking that being his friend would be perfectly fine if the slightest smile from him didn’t make her stomach twist. She needs some self-restraint.

“You’re staying for dinner, right?” he asks, in lieu of fighting snark with snark.

“You have to,” Octavia says. “He’ll be insufferable if you don’t, because if he can’t feed you, that means he hasn’t sufficiently paid you back.”

“I have enough dignity to admit that she’s not wrong about that,” he says.

“Yeah, because driving twenty minutes to the airport was _such_ a struggle.”

Bellamy narrows his eyes, like he’ll actually hold it over her if she doesn’t stay. Which—she hardly needs convincing.

“But fine, I’ll stay. It’s a good thing mooching free food off of you is one of my favorite pastimes.”

He rolls his eyes. “I knew you liked me for something.”

And yeah… she does.

Dinner is amazing, because Bellamy _would_ be an great cook, damn him, and conversation flows easier when there’s someone to trade teasing jabs with.

It’s late by the time she leaves, with a tight hug from Octavia and a smile from Bellamy that warms her toes.

 

* * *

 

The worst fire so far comes only four days later, just after Octavia leaves town, at a hospital downtown.

Clarke gets there when the fire is still in full force, the firefighters still focused on saving the people inside before starting the process of putting out the flames. It’s contained to just one wing of the hospital, mostly offices and empty examination rooms, and she hears employees expressing relief that it won’t affect many inpatients.

She lets herself breathe.

As always, Bellamy is already there, and she sees him rush in and out of the building as they clear the upper floors, tugging children and adults outside, into safety, as the fire builds in intensity. She’s not a firefighter, but after the months she’s spent on this case, she gets the feeling that this building might not be salvageable.

In the meantime, she starts interviewing those witnesses that she can, though it’s hard; Many are too shaken up still to provide relevant details, and some are still waiting for loved ones to be evacuated.

As time passes, the flow of civilians delivered to safety slows, and most people seem to be accounted for. She catches Bellamy’s eyes as he steps out of the building for the last time, he meets hers with a grim smile before making his way toward her.

Just as he reaches her, a woman appears at Clarke’s side, all fear and anxiety as she latches onto her arm, sending a jolt through her. “My daughter! Mel! She’s still inside! Please, they have to save her!”

Before Clarke can suggest _anything_ , Bellamy’s turning back toward the building—now ablaze in the truest sense of the word—with nothing but a quick assurance; “I’ll find her.”

“Bellamy!”

She doesn’t have time to say anything more. He’s gone as quickly as he was there, and the woman is still clinging to her arm. It takes Clarke long moments to reluctantly put aside her anxiety, but eventually she does, taking the woman’s hands and removing them from her arm to hold them in her own instead, as steady as she can.

“She’ll be alright,” she assures her. “He’ll find her.”

The woman just nods mutely and they both turn back toward the hospital, with bated breath. Each time a firefighter emerges from the blaze, the woman jolts forward a little, but every time, their arms are empty, and every time, it’s not Bellamy. As slow moments drag on, Clarke finds herself craning her neck farther, jumping a little, too, at each glance of a yellow uniform. But it keeps _not being him_ and soon the trickle of firefighters slows.

She’s done this before, seen this all before. She’s been working cases like these for months now, but it’s never been _Bellamy_ who doesn’t reappear when he should. And she knows that soon he won’t be able to breathe, let alone save this girl. She restlessly pushes away images of him struggling for air, alone in the burning hallways of the hospital.

 _Bellamy always comes out_ , she reminds herself. _Always_. But the reassurance rings weak, and false. Bellamy knows the dangers of staying in a burning house too long, which means he knows he should be out by now. And if he’s not, it’s because he can’t be. And with thoughts like those, it’s becoming increasingly hard for her to remain coolly professional.

She starts to look around for Lincoln, to pass the woman off to him before she completely loses it, when she feels her companion surge forward.

“Is that them?” she breathes, hesitant hope written across her face.

Whipping her head toward the building, Clarke catches sight of the yellow uniform the woman must have seen through the smoke. The figure moves laboriously forward, but she can’t see well enough to catch any details. Then, finally, _finally_ , she sees a head of messy hair coming through the door, into the night, arms full of the missing girl.

The woman leaves her side in a flash and the tightness constricting Clarke’s chest finds its release, letting her breathe again, feet carrying her toward him as he passes the girl off to the waiting paramedics and her mother.

Her pace quickens, matching her racing heartbeat, until finally he’s right in front of her, eyes still on the girl—Mel—and looking very much _alive._

“Thank God,” she breathes in a rush, throwing her arms around his neck.

He stumbles back under the suddenness of her weight, but she hardly notices, burying her nose into his neck, fingers curling into his uniform. He smells like smoke and soot, but beneath all that he smells like something distinctly _Bellamy_ and her chest lightens further.

As he regains his footing, his arms come up around her, solid and warm, and he must realize that it’s her who’s hugging him, because his embrace tightens after a second and his cheek comes to rest on her hair.

“It’s okay. I’m okay,” he whispers after a long moment, voice deep and rough from the smoke. “You’re okay.” She can feel him burying his face further into her neck.

She tries to laugh, but it comes out choked. “I’m not the one who walked into the fiery death house not knowing if I’d come out again.”

He pulls back from her with a laugh, and _god_ , seeing him smiling and _alive_ , albeit somewhat singed, is probably the best thing she’s ever looked at.

“And where’s your fucking helmet?” she asks, watery, as she takes him in, detaching her fingers from the death grip on his arms, but still keeping them on him, reassuring herself of his solid _there_ -ness.

He shrugs, smiling a little ruefully. “Couldn’t see through it. The visor got fogged up.”

She doesn’t have words that are any nicer than _you fucking idiot_ so she keeps her mouth shut and settles for smacking her hand against his arm. He grins again, wide, so she figures he gets the message.

He looks like he’s going to say something more as they stand there, arms braced together, her heart still racing, but as he opens his mouth to speak, his breath catches on a barrage of grating coughs, forcing him to pull one arm out of her grasp to cover his mouth. A paramedic appears at his side, insisting that he’s inhaled a lot of smoke, that they need to check him out.

Clarke tries, weakly, to catch hold of him as they pull him away, but he gently disentangles from her, his hand running down her arm as they hurry him away, fingers catching hers for a second before he has to let go.

“I’m okay, Clarke,” he says over his shoulder, as if he needs to make sure she believes it before they take him away.

“I know,” she breathes, but it’s too quiet for him to hear, so she sends him a soft smile and sees him return it fleetingly, before he finally disappears behind the fire truck.

She lets out a shaky breath, the mantra of _he’s okay_ continuing its endless cycle in her brain as her breathing finally evens out. She’s eventually calm enough to realize exactly _how_ freaked out she’d been when she didn’t know where he was. How much she _cares_ about him.

It’s not necessarily an unpleasant realization. More like a surprise, considering the way she once felt about Bellamy Blake. But it is different to her, somehow, than letting herself be friends with him, or having a tiny crush. It’s an entirely new depth that she wasn’t ready for, and she’s a little terrified, but maybe excited, too, to put a name to it.

But it’s a topic to ponder another time, because she has work to do: witnesses to interview, and evidence to process.

 

* * *

 

She finds him later, resting against the back of an ambulance, after her team is finished scouring what’s left of the building.

“Hey,” she says, settling down next to him and leaning into his side without really thinking about it. Stupid crush aside, she’s _exhausted_ and still very glad that he’s alive, and it makes her touchy.

“Hey,” he echoes, leaning back, resting his cheek against her hair for a moment. She has to remind herself that this is just how they are. As new as it is, she’s getting the impression that being friends with Bellamy Blake comes with casual affection, and she can deal with that.

“You feeling better?”

“Yeah, just inhaled a lot of smoke. Got yelled at and then given two days off, so clearly my life is like, the worst.”

She laughs, “Slacker. Some of us like getting our jobs done. You know, greater good and all that.”

“Some of us aren’t high-and-mighty perfectionists.”

She rolls her eyes at the jab, reminiscent of their early days, and then pulls back to look at him. To look at where they are, at how far they’ve come.

He looks back at her, clearly exhausted, but smiling, and she might love him, a little.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she says.

He’s quiet for a moment.

“Thinking about you... and how pissed you’d be if I didn’t come out,” he grins sarcastically, though the tips of his ears are pink, “it helped.”

She rolls her eyes, even as the flush builds in her cheeks. “I’m blushing, Blake.”

There’s a flash of something like hesitance in eyes for a moment, but she hardly has the chance to wonder what that means before he’s leaning down to kiss her. And she must have good instincts, when it comes to him, because she’s leaning up to meet him before she’s conscious of it.

The kiss is short and his lips are warm, but she doesn’t get to savor it before he pulls away.

“Okay?” he asks, like he’s not sure if she’s into it. Like she didn’t just meet him halfway.

“Yeah,” she breathes, nodding even as she leans back in, chasing his lips.

His hand finds the back of her neck and he kisses her back. She can feel him smiling at her eagerness, and then she’s smiling too, and laughing a little so that their kisses are less kisses and more like the awkward meeting of grins and happy breaths. She regains enough composure to properly kiss him, in a way that she hopes will communicate how much he’s come to mean to her, and he responds in kind. His hand settles at her waist, and hers in his hair as she melts against him, and she thinks that the burning between them might give their elusive arsonist a run for his money.

He breaks the kiss long moments later to rest his forehead against hers. When he laughs softly, she feels the flutter of his breath across her nose.

“What?”

“I’m just thinking about what my past self would think if he could see me,” he says, thumb drawing slow patterns against her hip.

“ _Oh my god, why her?_ ” she suggests.

“No, more like, _god, he looks happy,_ ” he says, with a heart stopping grin.

“Bellamy Blake is a cheesy romantic, alert the presses,” she says, not more than a whisper, before she presses her lips to his again.

Then, before he can respond, “She looks happy, too.”

“Clarke Griffin likes cheesy romantics,” he says, stealing another kiss before standing up and offering her a hand, grinning. “Alert the presses.”

 

* * *

 

The next time there’s a fire, it’s the first time Bellamy stays over at her place, so the arsonist really _must_ have something out for her in particular. For now, waking up to each other with lazy kisses and warm, sleepy skin will have to wait for another day.

She still holds her breath from the moment Bellamy enters the building ‘til the second she sees him reappear, but there is some solace in the fact that she can wind her arm around him when he comes to find her afterward, and hold him close as he presses a casual kiss to her hair.

“My boyfriend, such the hero.”

“Says my _girlfriend_ ,” he says, and she can tell how much he enjoys it, using the title, “who literally puts away criminals for a living.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if you thought there was going to be an arsonist reveal at the end. I did too, and then my brain was like, “Or u could just write more fluff,” and I was like, “U right, u right.”
> 
> I'm always around on [tumblr](http://www.goldenheadfreckledheart.tumblr.com) if you wanna hang.


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